


sky blue (so tired of all this travelling)

by elebuu



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: 5.0 postcanon, F/M, Themes(tm), ascians - Freeform, camp drybone, hades the lichkeeper, postcanon, postcanon au, thought experiment, whatever dont @ me i might not even finish this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:02:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23812750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elebuu/pseuds/elebuu
Summary: [ so many miles away from home. i keep moving to the stablefree to wander,free to roam ]-if Hades' soul, freed and expunged, should reenter the world to a garden of the dead.
Relationships: Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch/Warrior of Light
Kudos: 18





	sky blue (so tired of all this travelling)

_ his smile phased out of view and drank up his eyes, the current urging him to follow. this was in her hands now. her hands, and his only drowsy regrets were how he ought to have taken them into his, mortal though they were, just a hush of what they might have been, lacing and pressing sundered palms on his.  _

_ he was turning to seafoam, and where the brave hero had cut out his heart, so too had she excised the poison buried in the deep wounds there. the man once elected Emet-Selch, a dozen times crowned king and emperor, innumerable times branded Ascian, exhaled. a gasp no more. _

_ which, really, made the sudden pulse of the next moments of which his peace was aware a burning contrast to the calm sea of souls. _

_ perhaps he hadn't slumbered long; perhaps it had only been deep, the space of one pulse of dreams. it was impossible to tell.  _

_ a pity his freefall was not so gentle with him. he stumbled like a glass comet, torn from the heavens, a hail bullet sentenced to the whimsy of gravity, the flames of breathable air tearing at the casing of him. _

_ he descended from the sunless sea into the coal embers of the savannah at night, the last trails of light evaporating from him like smoke. his mouth inhaled the dust, the black sand that scraped away the shrapnel from the lance betwixt his stomach and his ribs. silently, a man's mouth cried out. his large, lean hands grasped at the site of the wound and found that where there had been Light there was now blood. _

_ his very own, un-stolen, personal life's blood. the sorcerer gasped, calling the shadows to cover him.  _

_ they did, and he knew no more until the dawn blanched his surrounds in searing amber. _

_ - _

_ "Oh, dear. He's very tall, isn't he?" _

_ "Is he, Sister? You forget your present company, I'm afraid! Why, if I could change out of these--mudcaked old foot wrappings--and into a sermon's-day set of good shoes, I would stand eyes to his jawline myself!"  _

_ There were hands on him. _

_ Working hands, deft ones. A flicker of sensation wandered over one of his brows; there was some profession of a kind, where hard-hewn hands like these were trained to be twice as gentle in their manipulations. It was as if he heard their voices from across a perfectly still, perfectly clear lake, distorted by the walls of some cavern below the waves. _

_ Broadcloth and canvas, the sleeves and drapings flowed over his skin. tough, unglamorous fibers, ones that nevertheless would need to be shaken of days of gravel breezes if they were to last longer than it had taken to weave them. he felt all but embalmed.  _

_ something of his stirrings must have registered with the pair, for their next motions were all as quiet as whispers, and, indeed, whatever he could catch of their exchanges was only the occasional murmur.  _

_ "Here, there's another bit we didn't catch. What strange material this is--it's a miracle he survived whatever did this to him, and not a drop on the weft--" _

_ A lightning storm of pain shot through the space under his ribs that was just as quickly suppressed as the palm of a hand covers a bursting pressure valve.  _

_ "There, it's clean. What do you suppose happened--" _

_ "If the worst should come to worst, Ilcum, the last rites examination will reveal aught of it. Remember, there's no telling if he'll come round. If he's made it this long, there's a good chance that proper rest and care will see him past it. But do not forget the work we do." _

_ The voice that must belong to this Ilcum sighed through her nose, the noise of a chided youth. He wondered at this work, but only a few moments more. They were moving, all three, and though the motions were unsteady, lilting, some pastoral animal or another that swayed on flawed and swinging pelvic bones, they silenced the stressful state of waking up to find himself poked and prodded where he least appreciated it. _

_ He wanted to tell them he was too hot.  _

_ The sun of damnation boiled the air, and it was too bright--the light, too bright-- _

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> lel sorry


End file.
